


The Capital of Portugal

by virgo_writer



Series: Sixteen-by-Eight Feet [4]
Category: Make It or Break It
Genre: F/M, Family, Future Fic, Gen, Humor, Kids say the darndest things, Lost in Translation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-01-02
Updated: 2011-01-02
Packaged: 2020-09-01 21:02:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,086
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20264464
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virgo_writer/pseuds/virgo_writer
Summary: "Mama, are we Lesbian?" 16x8 Universe. Payson/Sasha





	The Capital of Portugal

**** _February 2025_

“_Mamă_, are we Lesbian?”

Payson gaped, unsure of how to reply to what her child assumed to be an innocuous question.

“Oh, I’ve just got to hear this,” laughed Becca, an eager smile on her lips.

Payson glared at her sister and bent closer to her six year old son. He had a look of innocent curiosity in his blue-grey eyes – his father’s eyes – and absolutely no conception of how inappropriate his question was. 

“Weren’t you just leaving?” Payson asked her sister pointedly, hoping that she might take the hint. Becca would only encourage Alexandru’s curiosity, and while Payson was happy to oblige him herself, she really didn’t want to go into a discussion about lesbians while standing in front of the school gates with several members of her parents group listening nearby.

“Yes, but that was before my gorgeous nephew asked such an intriguing question,” Becca replied cheerily with a sickly sweet smile. “Now, Dru,” she began, turning her full attention on her young nephew, “why do you ask?”

“Harley” – Alexandru’s best friend – “said mamă and tată were Lesbian, so we must all be Lesbian, but I told him we are _Români_,” he told them, a touch of pride lilting his voice and his bastardized American-English-European accent suddenly apparent in his pronunciation of the last word. He let them both know that he’d gone to the effort to correct his friend on their behalf, or at least his father’s.

Becca blinked, her grin broadening as she tried not to laugh at her sweet little nephew. “So what’s a lesbian, Dru?” she had to ask just to see her sister turn redder with embarrassment.

Alexandru rolled his eyes somewhat condescendingly – he was lucky that he was six and ridiculously adorable because he certainly wouldn’t have gotten away with it otherwise. “It’s a person from Lisbon, which is in Portugal, which is near Romania.” It wasn’t – not really – except for in a relative sense, but for Alexandru there only existed two places in the world – America and Romania – and everywhere that wasn’t America was near Romania even if it was really near America. Mexico was a prime example of this fact.

Even Payson had to laugh a little at her son’s exasperated response. His manner was just too much like her own, and quite endearing in her son. She enjoyed seeing these parts of herself in Alexandru, who was in all other respects, just a smaller version of Sasha with lighter hair as the only evidence of her genetic input.

Alexandru’s response, however, made it quite apparent that neither he nor Harley had any idea of what a lesbian was. Harley had been satisfied to hear that Alexandru was Romanian and not Lesbian, and Alexandru seemed sure in his assumption that being Lesbian was the same as being Portuguese. 

“So why did Harley think you were lesbian, Sandu?” she asked, cringing and thinking she’d said the word ‘lesbian’ a little too loud. Harley had clearly overheard some adults talking and repeated it to Alexandru, and she really hoped it wasn’t Harley’s mother as she was really starting to like the woman despite some initial unease.

“He heard Miss Peregrine say so,” Alexandru replied, guiltlessly implicating his first grade teacher.

“Oh, that’s classic,” Becca grinned. “I take it Miss Peregrine hasn’t met Sasha yet. I can’t imagine anyone speculating about that sort of thing after meeting your husband.”

Payson gave her sister a tight smile, her expression nearly matching Alexandru’s earlier one. She shook her head in response to the question. “He was still in Romania when Sandu started school,” she explained, “so he missed ‘meet the teachers’ evening.”

“Bet he regrets that when you tell him,” Becca laughed. She could already picture the look on Sasha’s face when he heard and hoped she could be around to see her brother-in-law’s out of character reaction.

“I’m not telling him,” Payson replied plainly, her expression blank. Becca looked surprised initially, but understanding seemed to draw over her as she noticed an almost sinister glint in her sister’s eyes. It seemed it was time for Miss Peregrine to find out just who Sasha Belov was.

* * *

“Shit,” Sasha muttered once again as he glanced at his watch. He was significantly late in picking up Alexandru, having forgotten that Payson had asked him to do so until his secretary came out and asked him what the hell he was still doing at the gym around three o’clock. Payson was going to kill him when she found out, which meant he was going to have to bribe Sandu with ice cream so he would keep it a secret.

Not that he routinely bribed his children into doing anything of the sort.

He took the halls at a brisk pace, checking the room numbers as he went until he eventually stopped outside Room 11. He ducked into the classroom, empty except for a prim, dark-haired woman seated behind a wooden desk.

“Am I in the right place?” he asked her. “I’m looking for Alexandru.”

The woman glanced up at him, confusion awash on her features as she took in the sight of him. Now in his forties, Sasha certainly wasn’t the same man he had been in his twenties, or even thirties, but he was still a very attractive man with a very attractive accent. He still maintained his athletic physique, largely to keep up with his impossibly energetic son and daughter. His blonde hair was slowly turning a light shade of silver and his face was free of his trademark five o’clock shadow, giving him a more refined and debonair look. The woman could almost be forgiven for taking a moment to admire him, although obviously not by his wife.

“Dru Belov?” Sasha tried again, misattributing the confusion he saw on her features to the unfamiliar name and not to his unfamiliar presence.

“Dru?” she said slowly, the words not quite making it past all the other thoughts circling through her mind. “Oh, Dru,” she said finally. “He’s in my class.” She stood from her desk, moving towards him in a manner akin to a predator.

Sasha smiled tightly. “You must be Miss Peregrine,” he said, offering his hand in greeting. “I’m sorry I’m so late. His mother reminded me this morning, but it just completely slipped my mind.”

“It’s fine,” Miss Peregrine replied and waved off his apology as she shook his hand. “And please, call me Sylvia.”

Sasha gave her another tight smile, resolving that he would need to be careful to avoid her name from now on.

“So you must be Alexandru’s uncle?” Miss Peregrine asked, calling the student by his full name in an effort to impress herself upon her student’s relative. Like most Americans, she completely butchered the pronunciation, saying it in that awful ‘Alex-Andrew’ way that he was sure made his relatives all turn in their graves.

“I’m his father,” Sasha replied tersely with a frown. He had gotten used to people making these sorts of judgements in their early years of their relationship, but it had been awhile since people had given him those sorts of looks. He was only ten years older than Payson, and now that they were both nearing the half-way point in their lives, people had stopped obsessing over the age gap between them – these days he tended to get looks of awe for having such an attractive young wife rather than critical ones. Apparently his son’s teacher still thought him too old to be Payson’s husband and so thought him an older uncle rather than father. Or at least that’s what Sasha assumed.

Miss Peregrine’s eyes widened. “So you’re . . .” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “That’s just . . . so kind and caring . . . that has to be the most unselfish act in the world, what you did for Payson and Sasha.”

“Excuse me?” Sasha asked, not understanding at all where she was going in this.

For some reason, Miss Peregrine assumed he was just being shy and patted his shoulder. “Giving your sperm to Payson and Sasha so they could have a real family despite their relationship going against god’s will.”

Sasha glared. “I am Sasha,” he told her darkly, his expression grim.

Her eyes widened as those three words filtered through her mind. “You’re . . .” she said, looking distraught. “What- ”

“_Tată_!” Sandu called, racing down the hall to greet his father. “You’re late.”

Sasha turned to greet him, his hard looks and tight smiles turning into a real, face-splitting grin as he lifted his son into his arms. “_Fiul meu_,” he beamed, placing sloppy kiss of greeting on each cheek. “How was your day, _Puiule_?”

“_Necrezut!_” Sandu replied with an excited gesture. He then proceeded to describe every detail of his day in great detail. He did so in Romanian, which was his preferred language due to their having spent nearly a year and a half in the country before returning to America so Alexandru could start school last September. 

Miss Peregrine looked surprised to see her student speaking quickly in a language she didn’t understand, especially when his father replied in the same tongue. She had, on occasion, heard similar words from Alexandru, but had always assumed it to be some sort of made up language and actually thought that the child might have some sort of mental impairment.

“C’mon. I’ll take you for ice cream,” Sasha said in English once Alexandru had finished sharing the details of his day. 

“Mr Belov,” Miss Peregrine called, stopping them before they left.

“Please. Call me ‘Sasha’,” he replied with a tight smile, a part of him pleased to see her look even more mortified. “It’s what I’m accustomed to. In Europe, 'Sasha' is a common alternative to 'Alexander’, but it seems to be mistaken for a girls name here in America,” he continued sarcastically, glaring at her knowingly.

“I just wanted to apologize,” she began vaguely, “I shouldn’t have – “

“It’s Payson you should be apologizing to,” he said sternly as he cut off her attempt to make peace. “And probably Dru.

“We’ll be expecting a phone call,” he said in his no nonsense manner. She didn’t dare argue, something inside her knowing better than to even think about going against his word. “Payson will be home around six.”

* * *

“You could have warned me,” he complained to Payson when she arrived home later that evening. He greeted her with a chaste kiss before chivalrously taking Caitlin from her arms.

“Warned you about what?” Payson asked, feigning ignorance.

“That _Miss Peregrine_,” he said disdainfully, “thought I was your girlfriend.”

Payson grinned. “I didn’t think you’d believe me,” she shrugged. “I suppose you set her straight, so to speak.”

“Oh yes,” he replied darkly. “I think we should change schools.”

“Because Sandu’s teacher thought you were a girl?” Payson asked sceptically, shaking her head. While she wasn’t exactly happy with the teacher’s assumption, she considered enrolling their son in another school a bit of an over reaction.

“No, I want to change schools because she used the phrase ‘against god’s will’,” he repeated with a shudder.

Payson laughed at the phrase, her reaction to the words not nearly as violent as Sasha’s – probably due to the fact that she hadn’t been involved in a relationship with a teetotallering, born-again Christian, homophobic purist, and therefore didn’t have quite the same personal experience to draw upon. “How on earth did she manage to bring herself to teach our unholy child?” she drawled sarcastically. “Thank god for her charity. I’m surprised she wasn’t hunting me and my ‘life partner’ down to burn at the stake.”

“Payson, this isn’t funny,” Sasha replied seriously. “She might have been thinking of those exact measures.”

Payson looked at him gently, raising a hand to cup against his cheek and calm some of his outrage. “Honey, it is,” she said softly, holding his gaze until some of the darkness left his expression.

“Especially when you hear what Sandu thinks a lesbian is,” she added with a cheeky grin, which she could see him starting to reflect back in the quirking corners of his lips.

“What is it then?” he replied tiredly, maintaining his staunch position despite the gleeful smile on his wife’s lips.

“I won’t tell you,” she said happily, changing her mind now that she had him where she wanted him. “You have to guess.”

“Do I get a hint?” he suggested, becoming more relaxed as the game continued.

“Yes,” Payson nodded and her eyes lighted with mischief.

“What is the capital of Portugal?”

**Author's Note:**

> Translations:
> 
> Mamă: I know it's obvious, but I used the funny accent thing so technically it's a translation of mother (informal).  
Tată: Father (informal).  
Români: Romanian (plural).  
Fiul meu: My son.  
Puiule: Cub  
Necrezut: Marvelous.  
Sandu: Romanian pet name/diminutive for Alexandru
> 
> Notes:  
I will be completely shocked if anyone gets the Harley/Dru reference.


End file.
